10PLUS: Factory-Direct Carbon Wheels from Xiamen

10PLUS is a young brand from Xiamen selling carbon wheels directly through their own web shop. I first stumbled upon them earlier this year on Reddit and Instagram, and by now the first couple of review videos are showing up on YouTube as well. A while later the brand reached out to me directly.

What got my attention was the gravel wheelset: 25 mm internal width, hooked rims, 1560 g, for $459. That is the rim profile that Silca just built their whole new tyre range around, at a fraction of the usual brand price. So I dug through all their spec sheets and compiled what I found.

Two notes up front. First: I have not ridden these wheels yet. 10PLUS is sending me a set free of charge for testing - the T Series for Gravel in 38 mm, the entry-level one - and I will write about how they hold up once I have some kilometers on them. This post is the research beforehand, not a review. Second: all specs below come from the manufacturer's own spec sheets, and all weights are quoted ±3% by them - so treat them as claims, not measurements.

Who is 10PLUS?

The brand is new, the production is not. 10PLUS is a factory in Xiamen that has been producing carbon parts as an OEM for years and now sells under its own label, with a Shopify checkout instead of a sales rep. I haven’t visited their factory, yet, but that might change during my next visit in Xiamen. So far, I can tell you that they are the factory brand of a big OEM carbon factory that make Rims for well-known brands too.

How the range works

The catalogue looks confusing at first, but it is really just three choices: tier (T or E), spokes (plain or Pro), and discipline (Road / Gravel / MTB / TT). Every product is a combination of these.

T or E: The T Series has a 36T star ratchet freehub and S&S steel bearings. The E Series has a 45T ratchet, S&S ceramic bearings, and additionally offers a Campagnolo N3W freehub. The E rims also come from a different mould (more on that below), so the E is not just a T with a better hub.

Plain or Pro: "Pro" swaps the Pillar 1423 spokes and Pillar nipples for Sapim CX-Ray and Sapim nipples. Nothing else changes. In both cases the nipples are stainless steel, not brass - the spec sheets only name the brand, so I asked the manufacturer directly. At this price that is a real durability point.

According to the spec sheets, the Pro upgrade saves exactly 115 g on every single model.

Shared across the whole range: hooked V-profile rims (not hookless!), Toray T700 + T800 carbon, center lock discs, 24 spokes front and rear laced 2x/2x, 12x100 / 12x142 thru-axles, handbuilt assembly, 130 kg rider limit, and valves plus rim tape included in the box.

That 130 kg number deserves more attention than it usually gets - I come back to it in the gravel section.

So the ladder is T → T Pro → E → E Pro.

Road

All road rims are 21 mm internal / 28 mm external at every depth, rated for 700 x 25-43C tyres.

Note the different depths: T comes in 38/50/60, E in 40/50/65. The E Series is its own rim mould with a claimed rim weight of 400 g.

The full spread goes from $449 / 1580 g to $699 / 1270 g. That is 310 grams for $250, coming from the spokes, the bearings and the rim mould - the rim profile stays the same.

The 21/28 profile is conservative

21 mm internal / 28 mm external is narrow by today's standards, and it limits how wide a tyre makes sense on this rim.

Josh Poertner's rule of 105 says the rim should be at least 105% of the measured tyre width, so that the airflow coming off the tyre can reattach to the rim. With 28 mm external width that means a measured tyre width of at most about 26.7 mm. On a 21 mm internal rim, a 25C tyre already measures close to that, and a 28C ends up around 30 mm - clearly over the line. 10PLUS rates the rim up to 43C, but the aero benefit is gone above roughly a 25C tyre.

Most current road rims have moved to 23-25 mm internal for exactly this reason. That doesn't make this rim a bad buy, it just narrows down who it is for. If your frame cannot take wide tyres anyway - tight clearances, an older carbon frame designed around 23-25C, a TT frame with a narrow fork crown - then a wide rim brings you nothing, and this one costs $449.

Matching that older-frame focus: road is the only discipline that also offers a quick release option (9x100 / 10x135) besides thru-axle. Note, that the QR is still a disc wheel. As far as I can tell the quick release variant is a disc hub, so this is for an early disc-road or cyclocross frame from the transition years - not for a classic rim-brake build. I have asked 10PLUS to confirm and will update this once I hear back.

Rim-Brake wheel-set

There is also a rim brake version, but only on AliExpress. It is not listed on 10plus.cool at the time of writing. Whether that is a leftover, a test, or something that moves to the shop later, I do not know - if you specifically want rim brake, AliExpress is currently the only channel.

And the rim brake wheel is not the disc rim with a brake track glued on. It is its own thing:

19 mm internal and a 23-32C rating is a proper old-school road profile. If you are keeping a nice pre-disc frame alive, that is exactly the wheel you want and almost nobody still makes it any more.

The front is radial with 20 spokes because there is no disc torque to transfer - and the rider limit is still 130 kg.

The 245 °C brake track rating is the one spec that matters here: carbon rim brake wheels fail when the resin softens on a long descent, not from wear. 245 °C is at the upper end of what gets claimed, and plenty of cheap rim brake wheels never publish a number at all.

Gravel - the one I want to ride

Gravel rims are 25 mm internal / 32 mm external at 38 mm depth, and 24 / 31 mm at 45 mm depth, rated for 700 x 32-50C.

A 25 mm internal rim at 38 mm depth is closer to a modern all-road wheel than a classic gravel wheel, and that is exactly why I want it. Something to mount a Schwalbe G-One / Speed / G-one RS for 60% tarmac and 40% forest, short-cuts, rough surfaces.

25 mm internal is becoming kind of a new standard. The clearest sign is Silca's new Protocol tyre range: their road tyre, the Protocol RCR, was in their own words "developed around the modern 25 mm internal rim width standard", and every width in the Protocol line is measured on a 25 mm internal rim. The RCR comes in 29 / 34 / 38 mm - 29 being the narrowest width that still satisfies ETRTO on a 25 mm rim. That is where road tyres are heading.

A 34 mm road tyre on a 25 mm internal rim gives you a square casing, more air volume at lower pressure, and a contact patch that handles bad tarmac - without the rolling resistance of a knobby gravel tyre. The 10PLUS gravel rim is rated 32-50C, so the RCR in 34 and 38 fits within the stated range (the 29 is below their minimum). And since the rims are hooked, there is no tubeless-only restriction or pressure limit to worry about.

Two quirks you should know before ordering:

• The 45 mm rim is narrower than the 38 mm one - 24 mm internal vs 25 mm. If you want the wide rim, you have to take the shallow one. That is the opposite of what you would expect, so double-check when ordering.

• N3W vs Micro Spline: the shop dropdown offers "Shimano MS" on every SKU, but the E-series spec sheets say N3W (Campagnolo). Those are not interchangeable, so make sure before you order - especially if you are already blessed with a 13-speed.

The obvious rival: Elitewheels ENT Gravel (2.0)

If you have been looking at cheap carbon gravel wheels, you have seen the Elitewheels ENT Gravel. It is the closest thing to a direct competitor, and it is close in a way that is almost funny - same 25 mm internal rim, same Pillar 1423 spokes, 24/24 lacing, and ofc also built in Xiamen (There might be another connection between the two brands that I could tell you over a beer, but let's keep going on).

2 Aliexpress Listings i found charge 80 EUR Shipping to Germany is 80 EUR:

Rider limit is 125 kg. Spokes are Pillar 1423, 24/24 on the narrow listing and 21F/24R on the 28 mm one. Note that the weights on the narrow listing are explicitly quoted as "Weight (S&S Ceramic)" - the cheaper steel bearing build is not the number in that table.

The wider wheel is the lighter one. 28 mm internal at 35 mm depth is 1540 g; 25 mm internal at the same depth is 1638 g. Nearly 100 g less for more rim. That is not a layup detail, that is a newer mould generation (ENT Gravel 2.0) - the 28 mm listing is the current design, not just a wider option on the same one.

The 45 mm is the narrowest and the heaviest. 24 mm internal, 1686 g, and the tyre rating drops to 28-45C. Same trap as at 10PLUS, where the deeper gravel rim is also the narrower one, just one step more pronounced here.

Head to head at 38 mm

This is the honest comparison, because it is the only depth where both brands build the same rim:

Half a millimetre of external width apart, identical internal width, identical depth, identical spokes, identical lacing, identical tyre range. The 56 g on paper sit inside both tolerance bands - 1551 to 1607 g is a range both wheels can legally land in - so nobody can honestly claim one is lighter than the other. So the biggest difference between this two would be the Decals, 5 kg of rider limit and 111 EUR.

That 111 EUR is almost entirely the 80 EUR AliExpress shipping - exactly the same mechanism as in the 10PLUS shop-versus-AliExpress comparison further down. And the 370,69 € is a running sale price. Also note, that the VAT might be deducted during Aliexpress checkout again, so the prices would align in that case.

About that weight

1560 g is not a light wheelset by 2026 standards, but not unexpected for entry level budget rims. These rims apparently are using Toray T700 + T800 with a 130 kg system limit. If you are doing adventure gravel with framebags, a bar roll and three days of food, you might be adding 10-15 kg. And if you are a heavier rider to begin with, most of the sub-1400 g wheels in this price bracket quietly stop being an option at all.

Cheap rims tend to be built sturdier, with more material and a conservative layup, precisely because the factory does not want warranty cases. The weight you are carrying is partly the reason the limit is that high. That is a reasonable trade for a bikepacking wheel, and a bad trade for a hill-climb wheel. In the grand scheme of things, 200g more or less might make no difference for your usual ride.

What I am actually getting

The T Series for Gravel in 38 mm, $459 / 1560 g - the cheapest one in the range. Specs & price history · shop · AliExpress

Why not the E. The E costs $100 more for a 45T ratchet, ceramic bearings and 120 grams, and I do not think any of those three items would be meaningful for me. Ceramic bearings on a wheel that will spend its life in wet grit are arguably a downgrade in maintenance terms.

That is also the more useful test for most riders, as we can see the order numbers on Aliexpress are far scewed to the budget end and I suppose more interesting for a bigger number of viewers, as it makes sense to shop the cheapest offering when already looking for budget brands.

The rest of the catalogue

For completeness some other offers from them:

The tri-spoke is sold as a standalone front wheel. Together with the disc rear you get the classic TT setup for well under half the brand-name price.

Buying: the own shop is cheaper than AliExpress

Everything 10PLUS sells on its own site is also listed on AliExpress. It appears that you can save some money if you use the website. A concrete example - T Series for Gravel, shipped to Germany:

*: The row that needs explaining is the VAT one. AliExpress deducts the German VAT at checkout - that is where the 74,26 EUR comes off - but that deduction is not a promise that the tax is settled. On an order this size it can still be collected at the border, by the carrier, plus a handling fee. So budget for the possibility of another ~74 EUR landing on your doorstep. With 10plus.cool I have not seen that happen and the shop presents it as handled, but I do not know the details of their DDP setup, so I am not going to guarantee it either.

Either way the shop wins: 375 EUR against somewhere between 392 EUR and 466 EUR. The 85 EUR AliExpress shipping does most of the damage before tax even comes into play.

Side note for the cheap stuff we usually cover: on 1 July 2026 the EU removed the 150 EUR customs duty exemption. A 12 EUR bar tape or a 30 EUR set of tyres used to arrive duty-free - now every item carries a flat 3 EUR of duty. On a cheap part that is a 10-25% price increase, and it hits exactly the sub-50 EUR orders that make up most AliExpress bike part shopping. Expensive purchases like these wheels were always above the threshold, so nothing changed for them.

A few practical notes:

• Shipping is free with no customs fees to most EU regions, the US and the UK. Everywhere else ships free, but duties are on you.

• Every variant offers Shimano HG / SRAM XDR / Shimano MS in the dropdown - but see the N3W discrepancy above if you ride Campa.

• Shop prices are in USD. I used a rate of about 1.16 USD/EUR above; AliExpress prices also move constantly, so this is one snapshot of one model as of 2026/09/02

• The code MYBIKEPART gives 5% off. That is our partner code, and the shop links in this post are affiliate links - if you buy through them, we get a commission at no extra cost for you.

Disclosure

10PLUS contacted me and is sending a wheelset free of charge for testing - the T Series for Gravel, the cheapest set in the range, which was my choice. They had no say in this post, and nothing above has been checked or approved by them - it is all pulled from public spec sheets and shop pages, plus one question I asked them about the nipple material. We also have a partner code with them, so the links here earn a commission.

The test report follows once the wheels are built up and have some kilometers on them. If the numbers on the spec sheets turn out to be optimistic, you will read that here too.